


have i gone mad with grief? o, tell me, ophelia!

by petitlionhomme



Series: salvia plath [9]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Animal Death, Dubious Morality, Graphic Description, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Mental Instability, Morally Ambiguous Character, Shakespeare Quotations, Symbolism, Unreliable Narrator, talk of insanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 18:54:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18762370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petitlionhomme/pseuds/petitlionhomme
Summary: The instability of a mind and the intrusiveness of unwanted thoughts throws Ash into a pit he won’t be able to climb out of.





	have i gone mad with grief? o, tell me, ophelia!

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: There is a very graphic description of animal death which spans the first half of the fic. If that is a trigger for you, I do not advise reading this particular part of the series.

Whoever said intrusive thoughts were easy to ignore lied, it was all Ash could think about as he sat in the woods behind Eiji’s house, digging his nails into the palm of his hand.

 

The sting kept him grounded, it pushed the thoughts of mutilated bodies (swallowing glass, wearing too short skirts, vomiting up centipedes and cockroaches) from his mind and made him focus on the present, on _now_. 

 

Green eyes opened and narrowed in on something- a noise, a soft snuffle and a noise that would be cute if his frame of mind was better. His vision was unfocused (he could see the blood on his hands like a beacon, could hear those disgusting little noises like an air horn going off) but he could only make out a blur coming towards him.

 

His body moved before his mind (the noise was getting so loud) and he found his hands gripping something warm and furry, nails digging into it instead of his own flesh. 

 

Ash was squeezing it hard, so hard that the breathing was coming out in choked sputters and it was starting to twitch- hissing and now clawing at his skin, but that made him squeeze harder.

 

He felt the snap rather than heard it, but kept squeezing and digging his nails- blood, warm and fresh, the coppery smell in the air and the feeling on his fingers (against his flesh, soaking his clothes, more, more, more-)

 

Pausing, the blond felt relieved. His head was clear, his mind was empty and in his hands... was a dead kitten.

 

It was scruffy, maybe a month old, and dead. 

 

He could see where he’d clawed it open, the unnatural tilt of its body from being crushed by Ash’s hands and those green eyes were lifeless but still open, staring up at him with something like fear in them.

 

His head was clear.

 

—

 

He buried it, in an old shoebox and around the place he’d killed it. The blood had stained his nails, and even now, he could still smell it.

 

Eiji hadn’t asked, didn’t so much as breath a word when Ash sat on the floor by his feet, emotionlessly, (too much emotion, too full, too much) and rested his head in his lover’s lap, not crying, simply trying to comprehend.

 

He felt nothing.

 

His head was clear.

 

—

 

“What do you think insanity is?”

 

Eiji paused the strokes of the brush and frowned deeply, eyes full of question but a gentleness only he could possess in the face of possible danger.

 

“I think.. I think it’s a bad thing. I think that if something goes insane, it should be put out of its misery.”

 

“Even a human?”

 

Ash and Eiji locked eyes, a challenge.

 

“Even a human.”

 

—

 

Eiji always slept curled into Ash, it showed how much he trusted him while he was in such a vulnerable state. He was fragile, Ash has always been stronger than him physically, and on occasion, he wondered if Eiji had ever been fearful of that.

 

He would never turn his hand against Eiji, it was always the one thing he swore and even prayed for, to _never hurt_ Eiji.

 

Although, he wondered if he could keep that hidden promise, after the incident in the woods, he worried that his blurred and fragmented mind would lead him to hurt this precious piece of light, he feared that he would snuff it out like a flame.

 

Eiji was a bunny, and those were much more fragile than cats, enough that they can die from something as simple as fright, it was a harsh reality.

 

Would hearing about what he did scare Eiji to death? Would his pupils dilate and would blood begin to pour from his nose and eyes as his heart burst in his chest and he’d drop to the ground and-

 

Ash was working himself up over nothing, Eiji wasn’t that fragile, was he? He hadn’t died of fright when he found his sister’s dead body, so would this be any different? He didn’t even witness the mess that Ash had made of the creature, but surely his words wouldn’t harm him, right?

 

“Ophelia..” Ash whispered, pressing his lip to the boy’s brow. “Get thee to a nunnery..”


End file.
